> The Adam optimizer was published at ICLR, a top conference in machine learning.
Fair, must have misremembered that one.
> If you removed peer review and just relied on posting to arXiv or similar, new researchers, or researchers from less known institutions, would have no chance at all to make an impact.
I disagree on this one. I did my PhD at an institution that ranks in the top 10 in the most well known university rankings, and I distinctly remember that one time when I was submitting a manuscript to a prominent journal in my field, got some reviews back which weren't positive yet were quite valid criticisms, and my professor told me not to worry because the editor is his buddy and my manuscript will get published for sure.
When that sort of "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" culture exists in journals I don't see how peer review can be an equalizer. It just means everyone who publishes at a journal, including the less well esteemed ones, can claim they went through the rigor of peer review. Of course, we all know peer review is just a vibe check and is actually not that rigorous at all, and besides no one cares unless you published in a prestigious journal anyway. The less revered journals exist to collect $5k in open access fees for the publisher in return for hosting a pdf at the marginal cost of maybe a cent a year.
Fair, must have misremembered that one.
> If you removed peer review and just relied on posting to arXiv or similar, new researchers, or researchers from less known institutions, would have no chance at all to make an impact.
I disagree on this one. I did my PhD at an institution that ranks in the top 10 in the most well known university rankings, and I distinctly remember that one time when I was submitting a manuscript to a prominent journal in my field, got some reviews back which weren't positive yet were quite valid criticisms, and my professor told me not to worry because the editor is his buddy and my manuscript will get published for sure.
When that sort of "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" culture exists in journals I don't see how peer review can be an equalizer. It just means everyone who publishes at a journal, including the less well esteemed ones, can claim they went through the rigor of peer review. Of course, we all know peer review is just a vibe check and is actually not that rigorous at all, and besides no one cares unless you published in a prestigious journal anyway. The less revered journals exist to collect $5k in open access fees for the publisher in return for hosting a pdf at the marginal cost of maybe a cent a year.